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“I wish you would see if everybody is in the house and ready, Benny,” said she. “When this omelet is done they must come right away, or nothing will be fit to eat. And, Benny dear, if you don’t mind, please get the butter and the cream-pitcher out of the ice-chest. I have everything else on the table.”

“There is another thing,” said Benny. “I don’t go about telling tales, but I do think it is time you knew. The girls tell everybody that you like to do the housework so much that they don’t dare interfere. And it isn’t so. They may have taught themselves to think it is so, but it isn’t. You would like a little time for fancy-work and reading as well as they do.”

“Please get the cream and butter, and see if they are all in the house,” said Annie. She spoke as usual, but the strange expression remained in her face. It was still there when the family were all gathered at the table and she was serving the puffy omelet. Jane noticed it first.

“What makes you look so odd, Annie?” said she.

“I don’t know how I look odd,” replied Annie.

They all gazed at her then, her father with some anxiety. “You don’t look yourself,” he said. “You are feeling well, aren’t you, Annie?”

“Quite well, thank you, father.”

But after the omelet was served and the tea poured Annie rose.

“Where are you going, Annie?” asked Imogen, in her sarcastic voice.

“To my room, or perhaps out in the orchard.”

“It will be sopping wet out there after the shower,” said Eliza. “Are you crazy, Annie?”

“I have on my black skirt, and I will wear rubbers,” said Annie, quietly. “I want some fresh air.”

“I should think you had enough fresh air. You were outdoors all the afternoon, while we were cooped up in the house,” said Jane.

“Don’t you feel well, Annie?” her father asked again, a golden bit of omelet poised on his fork, as she was leaving the room.

“Quite well, father dear.”

“But you are eating no supper.”

“I have always heard that people who cook don’t need so much to eat,” said Imogen. “They say the essence of the food soaks in through the pores.”

“I am quite well,” Annie repeated, and the door closed behind her.

“Dear Annie! She is always doing odd things like this,” remarked Jane.

“Yes, she is, things that one cannot account for, but Annie is a dear,” said Susan.

“I hope she is well,” said Annie’s father.

“Oh, she is well enough. Don’t worry, father,” said Imogen. “Dear Annie is always doing the unexpected. She looks very well.”

“Yes, dear Annie is quite stout, for her,” said Jane.

“I think she is thinner than I have ever seen her, and the rest of you look like stuffed geese,” said Benny, rudely.

Imogen turned upon him in dignified wrath. “Benny, you insult your sisters,” said she. “Father, you should really tell Benny that he should bridle his tongue a little.”

“You ought to bridle yours, every one of you,” retorted Benny. “You girls nag poor Annie every single minute. You let her do all the work, then you pick at her for it.”

There was a chorus of treble voices. “We nag dear Annie! We pick at dear Annie! We make her do everything! Father, you should remonstrate with Benjamin. You know how we all love dear Annie!”

“Benjamin,” began Silas Hempstead, but Benny, with a smothered exclamation, was up and out of the room.

Benny quite frankly disliked his sisters, with the exception of Annie. For his father he had a sort of respectful tolerance. He could not see why he should have anything else. His father had never done anything for him except to admonish him. His scanty revenue for his support and college expenses came from his maternal grandmother, who had been a woman of parts and who had openly scorned her son-in-law.

Grandmother Loomis had left a will which occasioned much comment. By its terms she had provided sparsely but adequately for Benjamin’s education and living until he should graduate; and her house, with all her personal property, and the bulk of the sum from which she had derived her own income, fell to her granddaughter Annie. Annie had always been her grandmother’s favorite. There had been covert dismay when the contents of the will were made known, then one and all had congratulated the beneficiary, and said abroad that they were glad dear Annie was so well provided for. It was intimated by Imogen and Eliza that probably dear Annie would not marry, and in that case Grandmother Loomis’s bequest was so fortunate. She had probably taken that into consideration. Grandmother Loomis had now been dead four years, and her deserted home had been for rent, furnished, but it had remained vacant.